


Worth a Thousand Words

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bottom Zayn, Canon Compliant, M/M, Porn, so not realistically plausible but who cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:17:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which porn is watched, revelations are had, and everything's broken until it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth a Thousand Words

**Author's Note:**

> As always, much love to my beta Celia and to Denice who cheerleaded (cheerled?) me through it even though she didn't want me to be distracted from other fics. 
> 
> Don't know the boys, not real, all that stuff. If this had actually happened the Internet would have known. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Harry chooses the clip mainly at random. When he’s at home—when he has time and privacy—sometimes he’ll browse Pornhub for a while, find something really good, but he doesn’t really have the leisure to do that on the bus. It’s not that he’s ashamed—they’ve all wanked off around each other plenty of times, and Harry’s good at being quiet when he has to be and he has headphones in anyway—but being interrupted always ruins the mood, usually because it means someone wants to pull him into something. No one ever listens to his ideas about it not _having_ to ruin anything, but that is because he is in a band of unfortunately pretty close-minded heterosexuals who do not understand how good it could be.

So he chooses the first link he finds that looks hot and not awful, plugs in his headphones, and closes the curtain on his bunk. He shoves his pants down as soon as the video starts—he likes to tease sometimes, but he can’t count on someone not barging in at any minute.

It’s a good video, Harry decides quickly, one of the ones he likes because he’s not sure who he identifies with. On the one hand, he’s been the guy face down on the bed, with a larger man kissing down his spine, and liked it; on the other the guy’s back is so beautiful, more than Harry’s seen in most amateur porn, and Harry would like to lick it too. He’s a bit young, probably, twinky in the way of youth, with a hint at broad shoulders that might come later, but he’s not, like, pedophilic young. Harry’d probably been having sex that young, he justifies vaguely, and watches as the other man—short, spiky blonde hair, traditionally handsome features, slaps at the boy’s ass. The boy jolts and arches back, and lets out a low moan that has Harry wrapping his hand tighter around his cock.

The man spanks him one more time. “You gonna be good?” he asks, and the boy nods.

“Yeah, c’mon,” he stutters. He’s got a thick northern accent, and his voice is rough and low. “Fuck me.”

“Like it when you beg,” the man hums, and gets his hands on the boy’s ass to spread him open. It’s clearly amateur because Harry can’t see anything, but he can see the man leaning closer and he must be using his mouth because the boys is clutching at the blankets, squirming. Harry can’t even see his face, and it’s almost better that way, that he can just see the dark hair and the way the muscles move on his back, the way he thrusts helplessly into the mattress.

“Fuck, please, fuck,” he groans, and the man lifts his face and turns slightly, so the camera can catch his grin.

“Sure, babe. Whatever you want,” he says, and makes sure the camera catches him rolling the condom on. Harry’s moving faster now over his own cock, but he’s keeping himself on edge so he can see this through.

The man licks back up the boy’s spine, then slides in hard and fast, which makes the boy go rigid in a way that almost kills Harry’s boner.

“Good boy,” The man says, and kisses the boy’s neck. “You good?”

“Yes, I’m good,” the boy says. Harry doesn’t think he is, actually, but he said yes, and what does Harry know, he doesn’t know how to read this lad’s voice for all he sounds like—well—

Harry’s distracted from that thought process, thankfully, when the guy gives a thrust that has the boy moaning again, shamelessly loud, and Harry is absolutely bookmarking this link somehow, because that moan goes right to his cock and he starts to tug in earnest, as the other man thrusts in and out and the boy is shifting desperately against the sheets for some friction. Harry imagines wrapping a hand around the boy, coaxing his frantic moans into something needier and warmer, touching him in the same rhythm he fucks into him so he’s swearing into Harry’s ear in that rough accent, so Harry can kiss the skin at the underside of his ear and then down to the fern tattoo his imagination is already supplying—

Harry’s too caught up in the fantasy that at first he’s sure it’s his mind playing tricks on him, when the boy’s face turns for half a second and the camera catches a hint of a profile, finely boned features with cheeks not quite rid of baby fat and big dark eyes. It’s just a flash but then Harry’s hand is off his dick and scrabbling to pause it, to rewind the seconds.

There it is again. That image of the face, too quick for anyone who doesn’t know him inside and out to recognize.

Holy fucking shit.

“Zayn!” Harry yells. He can’t think of anything else to do. Holy—“Zayn!”

He barely has enough thought to tuck himself back into his jeans before the curtain’s being pulled open. Zayn’s there, in sweatpants and a tank top and bare feet. He’s got a beanie on and is freshly shaved, and Harry’s always thought it made him look younger but now it makes him look like—

“Where’s the fire?” Zayn asks, smiling sleepily. The other boys have wandered in too, probably brought by the immediacy of Harry’s voice.

Harry can’t even talk. He just turns the computer screen around.

“Why are you showing us your porn?” Niall asks. “I don’t care about two blokes.”

“Stop trying to turn us bi,” Liam agrees, with a long-suffering sigh. “I promise if I liked men I would fuck you, Harry, is that better?”

It is, a little, actually. But Harry just points at the face. Why aren’t they seeing it? “Look!” he demands.

“What? Is he—wait.” Louis cuts himself off to lean in, squinting. “Is that…”

“Zayn?” Liam asks. “The hell…Zayn?”

As one, they all turn. Harry hadn’t risked looking at him after that first glance. Wasn’t sure he could, with the images of the video in his head, with those sounds playing. But now he does.

Zayn is white, paler than Harry’s seen him since he and Perrie broke up, and his back and shoulders are set and tense. “Fuck,” he says, low and fervent, and Harry closes his eyes for a second to will away the memory of him saying that on screen. “Fucking hell,” he repeats, and scrapes a hand over his face, pushing his beanie back.

“That is you?” Louis demands. “Really?”

“You made porn?” Niall sounds like he’s on the edge of laughter. “Gay porn?”

“Who was this?” Liam asks, “Was it—do we know—”

Harry can’t say anything. It’s taking everything in Harry just to look at Zayn. It often takes a lot of Harry to look at Zayn, because looking at Zayn is both the easiest thing in the world and the hardest, but it’s never been harder than right now.

“I…” Zayn trails off, shakes his head. Louis wraps an arm sort of incidentally around his waist and pulls him closer, so Zayn can bury his head in his shoulder for a moment until he looks up again. “I was, like, it was before, yeah? He was just some random guy in a bar, you know? I didn’t—”

“Did you know he was filming?” Liam demands.

“What? Yeah. Like, you’ve seen the shit I filmed myself doing.” Zayn shrugs. “Never thought—I mean, I barely even remembered before now—I didn’t think he’d posted it, or anything.”

“Will this be a problem, you think?” Niall asks. He can get away with making things pragmatic like that because he’s Niall. Harry hadn’t even thought that far ahead. He’s still stuck on ‘guy in a bar’. He’s still stuck on ‘guy’. He’s still just stuck on Zayn.

“Hasn’t yet, and that was, fuck, that was before X-Factor. I mean, I was—” Zayn bites on his lip, but then his shoulders roll back. “I wasn’t legal, exactly? And he was, fuck, I mean, I don’t even know his name, but I think he was older? And he didn’t know my name—probably, like, gave him a fake or summat—so he might not know?” He sighs, sags a little into Louis when Louis pulls him tighter. “I’ll tell management, see if they can get it taken down without causing a fuss. Fuck,” he repeats. He looks exhausted, and he’s doing that thing he does when he’s exhausted, where he sort of curls inwards and makes himself look smaller. Usually, when he does that, Harry just wants to pull him close and cuddle him until he’s filled out again, to joke and do silly things until he’s smiling. But now all he can think of is how much it makes him look like the version of him on the screen, young and soft and fuckable.

“And the boy thing?” Harry manages to keep his voice even, he thinks. At least he doubts anyone knows he’s still more than half-hard in his jeans. This is more important than his arousal. This is the band. This is—it’s important.

Zayn shrugs. His face is doing that thing where he closes off, usually because he’s feeling guilty about something and didn’t want to admit it. “It’s, like, yeah. Sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Louis demands. Harry can see Zayn flinch, but when Louis doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t move away, he relaxes a bit.

“Yeah, it’s not like we care here, with Haz around,” Niall adds. Harry sticks out his tongue, and Niall grins back.

“Dunno. Didn’t feel, like relevant?” Zayn lifts his chin, and all Harry can think of is the way the man on the video had kissed the bit of neck that exposes, the way Zayn had moaned when he did. “I mean, I like girls too, and, like, then I had Perrie? And, I dunno, it would have been…”

He doesn’t have to finish. They all know. It’s hard enough for Harry, who’s always pushed the lines a bit and who’s usually pretty beloved by the press. Harry knows it hasn’t always been that easy for Zayn, that he’s always gotten flack for things more personal than posting the wrong picture.

“Okay then, this was fun.” Louis gives Zayn one final hug, then lets him go. Harry knows what he’s doing, trying to take the pressure off of Zayn. He’s glad of it. Glad because all his energy is taken up trying to forget ‘guy in a bar’. “We’ve learned a lot, become much closer as a group of people whom at least one of has done porn.”

“At least?” Liam repeats, as Zayn swats at Louis’s head.

“Well I’m not making assumptions, I wouldn’t have expected Zayner here—hey!” He’s cut off when Zayn hits him again. “I’m just stating facts! Maybe Niall’s a secret porn star, we don’t know, because some people are keeping—”

Liam’s the one who hits him this time, and he darts back into the lounge, cackling. Niall follows after. Harry’s waiting for Zayn to go to, to leave him alone so he can deal with this—and the erection that’s never really left—on his own, but Zayn hovers at the door. He’s pulled his beanie down, and is fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Harry pointedly doesn’t look there.

“Did you, like, watch it?” he asks, softly. Harry gives the computer a guilty look. “I mean, obviously you watched some, but, was that very far?”

“No.” It’s not really a lie, Harry figures. He didn’t watch all of it.

“Okay.” Zayn swallows. Harry watches his Adam’s apple bob. “Don’t? Please?”

“Yeah, of course.” Harry grins as brightly as he knows how. “That’d be weird, right? Definitely won’t do that. I wouldn’t.”

“Thanks.” Zayn tugs on the beanie again, and looks like he’s about to say something—but then he doesn’t, just turns around and walks away.

Harry groans, and collapses back into his bed. Then he shuts the curtains, and wanks off fast and hard, biting down on his hand and trying his hardest not to think of the needy moans Zayn had made.

\---

It goes away, mostly. There was some good natured ribbing, Louis made porny moans sometimes that didn’t sound half so good as the real thing, Liam made a few awkward but sensitive comments about the whole bi thing, but for the most part, it was just another weird thing that one of them had done, like the time Liam had almost jumped off a roof or when Niall had tried the saltine challenge three times in a row.

Even Harry manages to forget. More or less. He tries to, at least, which he thinks counts. He certainly did not download the link before it mysteriously disappeared through some magic of management’s. He hasn’t watched it, not yet, but his mouse hovers over it a lot. But it’s not just that. It’s that—now that he’s seen it, he can’t unsee it. Can’t help but imagine if Zayn’s still like that in bed, if he’d still make those throaty moans and be shameless about asking for it, if he’d still let someone push him around a little bit, make him thrust into the mattress helplessly. It’s not the first time Harry’s wanked over the thought of Zayn, if he’s being honest, because Zayn is really hot and also, well, Zayn, but it’s the first time he knows the reality of it.

He does his best to ignore it, though, and he would be doing okay if _Zayn_ wasn’t the one who wasn’t acting normally.

It’s not a lot. It’s nothing most people would notice. But they’re so crowded together so often, especially on this part of the tour where they have the bus, that it’s really hard not to notice how Zayn doesn’t just tuck himself up next to Harry anymore, like he used to. How he always stands a tiny bit farther away than normal, how there’s tension in him whenever he’s nearby. How he avoids him on stage. How there’s always hesitance in his smile when he turns it on Harry now.

It’s not fair, really. It’s not like Harry had meant to watch him having sex and accidentally out him to the band. It’s not like it’s Harry’s fault he can’t see him shirtless without flashing back to the image of his back arching into a thrust. And Harry hates it when Zayn is mad at him. When any of them are mad, really, because Harry’s not so good with the confrontation, but Zayn’s anger has always hurt the worst, somehow, just like Zayn’s frowns have always made Harry the most desperate to make them disappear. It’s just one of those Zayn things Harry’s long since come to accept.

So even though it isn’t Harry’s fault, he still needs to fix it, because something in him hurts every time Zayn doesn’t touch him when he should. And because Harry is many things, but he’s not good at subtle, he doesn’t wait. Waiting would mean more time with Zayn being weird. And once Zayn stops being weird, Harry can forget what he sounds like when he’s desperate for it, and everything can go back to normal.

“Hey, Zayn.” Harry plops down onto the couch next to Zayn, and throws his legs over his lap before he can get a chance to run away. They’re the only ones in the bus, anyway—the other three are out playing footie or something—but Zayn might, like, defensively go to sleep or something. Harry’s got a theory about how sometimes when they can’t wake him up he’s just avoiding situations he doesn’t want to deal with.

“Hey, Haz.” Zayn doesn’t look up from his book, but Harry can feel how he’s tense, and he’s not pulling Harry into him like he should, like they usually do when Harry will sit there curled around Zayn and listen to music or read over his shoulder or something.

So Harry does it for him, wiggling closer until their sides are touching and Harry can wrap his arm around Zayn’s waist. Zayn twitches, and he turns the page with the sharp kind of motion that Harry knows means he’s not really paying attention to his book.

“Are you mad?” Harry asks, once he’s properly situated. Zayn has problems being mad at people who are cuddling with him.

Zayn does look up at that, and Harry thinks the confusion in the way his eyebrows are drawn together and his head tilts is real. “No. Why would I be?”

“Because—” Harry doesn’t really want to remind him, or himself, of it, but he thinks he needs to explain. “Because I sorta outed you?” he tries. It’s a compromise, he figures. It’s not, because I’ve seen what you look like right before you come and I really tried not to think of it when I wanked this morning but somehow it snuck in.

Zayn just shrugs. “It had to happen eventually. And it’s better you found it than, like, a fan.” He shudders with the thought, and Harry pulls him closer in sympathy. That would have been awful.

“Good thing I watch a lot of porn,” Harry agrees, and it gets a flash of a smile out of Zayn, which is more than it feels like Harry’s gotten in days.

“’bout time it came in handy,” Zayn agrees, with one of his laughing, fond Harry-looks that always make Harry want to preen.

“I always come in handy,” Harry shoots back, and waggles his eyebrows.

It’s just—it’s what they do, this half-flirtatious banter. It’s how they work, it always has been, from the way Harry licks Zayn’s ear when they’re whispering sometimes or when Zayn had bitten candy off of Harry’s thighs. Usually Harry says something like that and either Zayn rolls his eyes and swats at Harry’s head with his book or Zayn will smirk and say something that’s half a challenge that Harry certainly never thinks about taking him up on.

But now Zayn just gives him an uncertain sort of smile that reminds Harry of years ago, when Zayn was still growing into his skin. Of the Zayn in that video, young and wide-eyed. “Yeah, right. Sure you do.”

But Zayn’s not mad at him, so why aren’t things normal? Harry lets out a gusty sigh, and leans his head on Zayn’s shoulder. He never should have watched that video. He really shouldn’t be thinking about the skin beneath Zayn’s thin t-shirt, and wondering what sort of noises he would make if Harry bit into it right now.

\---

Things don’t get any better. Harry figures maybe Zayn’s uncomfortable because he’s not sure about Harry’s reaction to him coming out, but dropping hints about his willingness to wingman at certain discreet clubs he’s been to or how he’s perfectly willing to bond over this new thing they have in common doesn’t work. If anything, it backfires, because now Zayn’s started avoiding him. Not in an obvious way, because Zayn is subtle when he wants to be, but he’s just never there. Or if he is there, then he’s not close to Harry, always whispering with Louis or running around with Liam or giggling with Niall. It’s nothing unusual, except for how Harry isn’t in the rotation, and if he wanders over to join in Zayn’s somehow gone. Harry would think he was hallucinating, except when he asks Niall about it, he agrees.

“Yeah, he’s definitely avoiding you,” Niall nods. Harry moans, and flops backwards onto Niall’s bed. Niall does not look away from the match on the telly.

“But he isn’t mad!” he moans. The bed’s coverlet is a dark blue, which is basically green, which is basically what had made Zayn’s skin stand out like gold, and he’s tanner now, so it would look—Harry cuts off that train of thought quickly. He’d spent a full two minutes staring at the file on his folder last night, after Zayn had gotten into a bit of a dance off on stage with Liam, rolling his hips like he knew how. “He said so.”

“Zayn has more emotions than mad and not mad,” Niall points out easily. “He’s all complicated like that—yes!”

“What?”

“Saved it.”

Harry rolls his eyes. He is trying to make sure a vital bond within the band stays strong, and Niall is worrying about football. “But this is what he acts like when he’s mad! Remember when Louis nearly convinced Safaa he had gotten rid of Tiger and he didn’t talk to him for a week?”

Niall shakes his head. “Nah, he made sure Louis knew what was happening, that time. He’s not rubbing it in your face, is he?”

“Wish he was,” Harry replies before he thinks better of it.

Niall snorts. “Maybe that’s your problem.”

“What? He’s hot. He’s always been hot. You’re hot too, I wish you’d rub it in my face as well.”

“Slag,” Niall retorts, “In your dreams.”

“You know it,” Harry agrees, with an over-exaggerated sigh. “I just want things to be normal.”

Niall hesitates, then he actually mutes the game and turns to look at Harry. Harry props himself up on his elbows. This must be serious. “But, do you?” Niall asks. “’cause, he might be avoiding you, but you keep on giving him these looks.”

“What kind of looks?” He’s not giving looks. He is look-less.

“Like you’re picturing him naked.”

“I—” Well, he is. Sometimes. Not a lot. Not as much as he could be. “Like I said, he’s hot! And now I’ve seen—well, seen some—it’s only natural!”

“Yeah, but it’d be weird to be getting all the time from a mate.” Niall shrugs. “And that’s me. It’s Zayn.”

Of course! It’s Zayn, who only likes to give pictures to the press when he takes them, who is so aware of what he looks like all the time and what sort of face he’s presenting to the world. Zayn, who’s so concerned with his own privacy he doesn’t even really tweet, which Harry thinks is the stupidest thing. And now Harry’s seen him—well, all of him. And Zayn is Zayn, so of course he couldn’t actually say what’s bothering him, even when it’s so simple.

“Perfect!” Harry announces, and bounces up to sitting. He grabs Niall to press a smacking kiss to his forehead, and Niall laughs as he shoves him away.

“Hey, said in your dreams, didn’t I?”

“You are always the star of my dreams,” Harry promises, and leaps to his feet. He’s going to fix this.

Of course, first he has to find Zayn. He looks in his room, then by the pool, then in the bus, then in Louis’s room, then in Liam’s room, then in his own room just in case, then by the pool, before he realizes the obvious solution and goes down to the bus.

Sure enough, Zayn is there, curled up in a chair in loose jeans and a tank top, though his hair is messy this time, like it would have been after someone got their hands in it, held him—

“I’ve figured out a solution,” Harry announces, and forgoes the intermediary step to sit on Zayn’s lap. Zayn immediately readjusts, moving his legs and torso so they’re more comfortable, which Harry takes as a good sign. It’s back to what they do. But Zayn also doesn’t grab him like usual to steady him, and he’s pushed back in the chair so they aren’t really touching, and Harry can see his hand on the arm of the chair and it’s holding tight.

“There was a problem?” Zayn replies. It’s meant to be casual, but Harry knows what Zayn sounds like when he’s just joking around with them and he knows what Zayn sounds like when an interviewer is getting close to a topic he doesn’t want to discuss, and this is definitely more the latter.

“You’ve been acting weird.” He feels, as much as hears, Zayn choke. “And I thought you were mad, but then you said you weren’t, and I didn’t think you were lying. And I know I’m not always great at figuring that out with you, but I’ve gotten a lot better. Remember the time with the fish? I totally knew it was you, even though you said it was Louis. Though that might have been because Louis’s really bad at lying.”

“I never admitted to that,” Zayn retorts.

“Yeah, but Louis hasn’t copped to it, and—no.” He sees what Zayn’s doing. Zayn can be sneaky sometimes. “No distracting me. I’m fixing this. I’m fixing us.”

“We aren’t broken, Haz.” Zayn says it softly, almost wearily. Harry has to swallow down the urge to just hug him and not let him go until he loses that tone, except possibly to feed him and give him tea and maybe press him into those navy coverlets and make him stop…

“We won’t be, because I’m going to fix us. I figure, you’re acting weird because I invaded your privacy—accidentally, remember, not on purpose, it’s not like I meant to see—.”

“I know it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. Like I said, it’s better—”

“But,” Harry cuts him off, and gives Zayn his sternest look so he’ll stop interrupting. “I did. And I can’t unsee it.” Even if he wants to. Even if he wants nothing less. “So I figure, best alternative, I’ll tape me having sex, and you can watch that.”

“What?” Zayn actually goes so stiff under him that he almost stops being comfortable. “No. Harry. That’s insane.”

“It’ll work!” Harry insists. It’s a brilliant plan, really. “I saw you in a private moment, so you’ll see me in one! Everyone’s equal!”

“It’s not about—” Zayn sighs, so Harry jostles a bit on his lap. “It’s not about bloody, like, equality. I’ll stop being weird, I promise.”

“But you haven’t!” Because it’s there, and because he wants to drive the point home, Harry licks at his neck. Normally Zayn wouldn’t even react to that, now he almost jerks away. “You will though, if you watch my sex tape.”

“Do you have a sex tape?”

“No. But I could make one. I’m sure I could find someone who would agree to.” He presses his lips together, trying to think who. “It wouldn’t be exactly the same, ‘cause I’d know and it’s not, well, that, but then no one’s privacy would have been violated more than anyone else’s.”

“You didn’t violate my privacy.” Zayn says it firmly, in that way he has that makes it sound like fact. It’s his giving orders voice, the one he takes when Louis finally goes to far or he needs all of them to fuck off, and suddenly Harry’s wondering if maybe he’s changed since he was seventeen, if he’s not the one being pressed into the mattress anymore. It’s really not a helpful thought. “That bloke did, when he put it on the fucking Internet without telling me, but you didn’t.”

He did, though. Zayn thinks he didn’t see much, doesn’t know that even right now he’s thinking about what he had looked like needy and gasping. “I still think you should watch me,” he says, and feels Zayn’s breath stutter. It’s not that horrifying an idea, honestly. Harry thinks he’d be offended if he didn’t have zero legs to stand on.

“I don’t think so,” Zayn says, and somehow he’s moved Harry so he’s sitting on the chair and Zayn is standing. He’s biting on his lip too, and he looks awkward in his own skin like he hasn’t since he was young enough to be in that video, and he probably bites on his lip during sex too, and now Harry wants to see if that’s true. “That—that wouldn’t fix anything,” he says, and Harry doesn’t have time to point out how he’s just admitted something’s broken before he goes.

\---

It only gets worse from there, and Harry hadn’t thought it could get worse. Or, it doesn’t really change, because Zayn keeps on avoiding him, even if he does it a little less obvious, so everything’s the same with them. But he also suddenly seems to go a bit mad. Or maybe it’s Harry gone mad, because he doesn’t know if Zayn wandering around in one of his tank tops, where the chestpiece peaked out and the ink climbing over his shoulder, always made his mouth go dry, or if that’s new. He doesn’t know if he never could look away from Zayn dancing, even his stupid dancing that he knows is stupid, or if that’s new now that he remembers those hips thrusting into the blankets. He doesn’t know if his cock always twitched whenever Zayn swore, or if that’s just because now he knows that’s what he sounds like when he’s being fucked, needy and desperate for it.

What he does know, though, is that Zayn didn’t used to give those flirty grins to everyone he met, and some people he hadn’t yet. He’s always been flirty when he wants to pull, and no one smolders like Zayn smolders, but now he’s handing out those come-hither smirks like candy, until every single female over the age of, like, eight, is in love with him, and probably most of the boys too. Louis laughs, and elbows Harry to say Zayn is taking his place, but it’s not funny, is the thing. Because he still won’t even look at Harry.

And he knows Zayn didn’t always...look at everyone. Well, no, he looks at people, Harry knows that, but now he’s _looking_. It’s like how he looks—looked—at Harry, sometimes, long, slow gazes or quick flashes from underneath those stupidly long eyelashes that flutter when he’s turned on. Now he’s giving that look to everyone, and it burns even when it’s not on you being looked at and Harry doesn’t understand how every single girl he looks at doesn’t go up in flames. (To be fair, some look like they will.) He feels like he will, when he sees that look, when he thinks about how it would feel like on him. When he remembers how it felt like on him.

Then, one morning, Zayn comes stumbling out of the back of the bus after a night out with Niall. He’s shirtless, which is bad enough, especially when he’s just got sweats on hanging low at his hips so his whole spine is exposed, that spine that the guy had kissed and had turned Zayn into a squirming pool of arousal, but then he turns so the light falls on him right. Harry thinks he stops breathing.

He’s got marks on his neck, red scratches scored down his back, and Harry’s mind literally just blanks out.

Louis hoots with laughter. “Get some last night, Malik?” he crows. Zayn flips him off without turning around, as he rummages in the cupboards. The bruises make the skin of his neck purple, and they’re inescapably eye-catching.

“Those are massive,” Liam agrees. “Caroline’s gonna kill you.”

Zayn shrugs, and turns around. He has to go past Harry to do it, but Harry knows he’s not imagining how he looks down so he doesn’t have to see Harry. It hurts. It hurts even worse because Harry’s trying his hardest to will down the erection that came just from seeing those marks, from the images that jumped unbidden into his head at them, at who left them there and how. “They’ll fade enough,” Zayn says.

“Was she worth it, then?” Niall asks.

“Niall,” Liam snaps.

Niall chuckles. “Fine, was he or she worth it?”

Zayn’s cheeks go the slightest shade of pink. “Um, yeah. They were.”

“They?” Harry doesn’t think he squeaks, but he’s not sure. “Gender neutral, or—”

Zayn smirks, now, and fuck he is looking at Harry when he does it, for the first time in what feels like weeks. “Plural.”

Niall catcalls, and Louis whoops out a cheer. Harry slams back in his chair, trying his hardest not to think about—what. About what it could have been. Two girls, Zayn fucking into one as he licked out another. A girl and a guy, maybe, Zayn caught between them as he fucked into her and the guy opened him up slowly and well. Two guys, maybe, and Harry nearly chokes on the thought, on how maybe one bit into his neck and made those marks, while another dug his nails into Zayn’s back as he fucked him, and—

“I’ve got to go,” Harry says, cutting into the conversation that’s already moved on. Niall raises his eyebrows, but no one says anything. Zayn doesn’t even look up.

\---

Harry watches the video.

He can’t not. He thinks he’s going to go mad with it, with Zayn right there in front of him, with all the imagining he’s doing. If he just watches it, just once, if he learns what Zayn actually sounds like when he comes, if he sees it—maybe it’ll go away, and he and Zayn can go back to being him and Zayn, flirting and cuddling and comforting and normal in all those ways that feel like home.

And also, he needs to. He thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t get to see it. So the next time they’re in a hotel, when Harry can be sure that not only are all the other boys out—Zayn going to another fucking bar, and he just smirks when Liam asks him what his plans are—and that he can lock his door and bolt it, he finally, finally opens the file.

It starts just as well as Harry remembers. Except it’s different, this time, when Harry knows. When Harry knows it’s not just a boy getting fucked, it’s Zayn. It’s Zayn’s voice begging for it, Zayn’s ass pushing back into the guy. It’s Zayn who the guy takes a little too hard, in a way that makes Harry wince, because no one should treat Zayn like that. Shouldn’t leave him hanging like this guy does, fucking into him with no thought for him. Harry’d take care of him. Harry would have fucked him slowly, gently, so he didn’t need any of that put upon bravado and it was all the warmth they usually have. Or at first he would have, at least. He doesn’t know how long he could have lasted slow, he thinks, watching as Zayn’s hips move fruitlessly, as the guy thrusts in with big, hard strokes that have Zayn muttering things Harry can’t understand, might even be Urdu, but all in that low hoarse tone that has Harry fisting his dick hard and fast.

The other guy comes first, with an unnecessarily loud moan and a turn so he’s facing the camera. Zayn’s still panting when the guy pulls out. Somehow, miraculously, the guy manages to turn him so his face isn’t in the shot, but Harry can see enough. He’s young in a way that should make Harry uncomfortable if he couldn’t remember what he had thought about doing to Zayn when he was that age, but he’s beautiful as he always was, and his hair is messy with sweat and he’s one long line of skin. No tattoos, not yet, and still a hint of baby fat that’s long since burned off, and fuck his prick is as beautiful as the rest of him, of course, thick veined and heavy as the other guy wraps his hand around it, tugs at it once, twice, and then Zayn’s coming on a litany of ‘fuck yeah’ and Harry falls right behind him, swallowing down the name he wants to yell.

\---

Harry feels guilty about it, at least at first. Not about watching, or about seeing. Zayn had said he wasn’t mad about that, and anyway, it’s not like it’s anything he hadn’t imagined before. He’s known that Zayn was the hottest person he’d ever met since he was about seventeen, and that’s never been anything he’ll deny.

But he does feel some shame about the lie. About breaking his promise, because Zayn had asked him not to watch it and then he did. That’s—well, Harry knows that wasn’t well done of him. But he really doesn’t see how he had any other choice.

Just like, he rationalizes, he doesn’t have a choice the second, or third time he watches it, because Zayn is still flirting with everyone who isn’t Harry, and going out and pulling with a sort of focused abandon that has even Niall raising his eyebrows, and not talking to Harry.

Or, it’s not that he’s not talking to him, because if Harry says something he’ll respond, and he’ll even joke a bit. But he doesn’t tease, and he doesn’t really say anything, and Harry’s known him for years and this feels like way back at the beginning, when Zayn was still keeping all of them at arm’s length. He doesn’t want to be at arm’s length. He wants to be as close as possible.

It’s making Harry jittery, fidgety. He’s louder on stage, sillier, running around to joke with Niall and mess with Liam. He goes out too, but he smiles and flirts and can’t hear anything but Zayn’s stuttering curses as he comes.

Usually, when he gets in these moods, he goes to Zayn. Usually he doesn’t even need to, because Zayn would tap him on the shoulder and ask if he’s all right before Harry even thinks to need to ask, and then Zayn would pull him down to the couch for a cuddle and a film he even let Harry pick before Harry found himself spilling everything to Zayn, all the things that were getting too loud inside his head. There’s nothing quite like talking to Zayn when Zayn’s really listening, nothing quite like having all that quiet focus pointed at you.

But now he can’t do that. Now he doesn’t know how.

It’s not in Harry’s nature, though, to let something like this sit. He can’t. And he also can’t watch the video any more, because he’s starting to really notice things he doesn’t want to, like how rough the guy is sometimes, and how Zayn really does look young and Harry can hear how most of his taunting is bravado.

But nothing he does works. Talking to Zayn doesn’t work, so he tries texting and only gets one word responses. Playing around with him on stage almost physically hurts, because Zayn plays back but Harry can tell there’s a difference, like he’s only going through the motion. He tries to get Zayn to come out with him, but of course that’s the one night Zayn feels like staying in, and Louis is a useless twat who will always agree to a night in if Zayn wants. He’s always asleep when Harry comes back into the bus to cuddle (and Harry knows there’s something suspicious about that), and when Harry does what he normally does—what Zayn has _said_ he likes—and comes up next to him at a random time to wrap his arms around him and mutter “You okay?” in his ear, instead of laughing or starting to wrestle, or even saying his usual ‘course, Haz’, he just giggles awkwardly and gets himself out.

So fine, Harry decides. He’ll let it go. He doesn’t need Zayn either. He doesn’t even want him, except for how he does.

\---

Harry doesn’t really get homesick. He barely ever goes home, if home is Holmes Chapel. Or even if home is London. He likes this life he leads, the way they’re always moving, how he can be in LA one day then New York the next then Milan the day after. How he gets to always meet new people, see new things. He’s not like Zayn, who’s always looking back.

But he does get lifesick, he thinks, sometimes. When he thinks about everything he can’t have, with his life. It’s not something that hits often, but when it does, it hits hard, probably because it doesn’t hit often.

So when he’s scrolling through his Facebook feed and sees the news that one of his classmates, who was only a year older than him, just got married, it floors him. He knows he’s young still, that there’s plenty of time, that there’s no reason for him not to have anything. But he can’t help himself, as he clicks over and over at the photo album, pictures of her smiling blissfully at the camera, baby in her arms and her husband, who isn’t handsome but looks it when he looks at her, standing nearby with a helpless smile on his face when he gazes at his wife and daughter. There are all sorts of well-wishing posts, and praise, and it’s lovely.

And he’ll never have that. Maybe he’ll have the wife—maybe he’ll have the husband—and maybe he’ll have the kid, but it’ll never be that simple, he knows. If he posted a picture of him and his family, even years down the road, even if he’s not selling out stadiums anymore, there’ll be hundreds, thousands of well-wishers—and at least as many people criticizing him, his baby. He’d probably have to run the photos by a publicist first.

He knows it’s stupid, this regret. He loves his life. He loves the spotlight and the praise and the energy that always follows him, and he doesn’t really care about the hate, not anymore, not when it’s so outweighed. But it’s hard to think about that when he’s looking at that baby.

He can’t stay by himself, not in this mood, because he’ll just Facebook himself into a funk. So he goes before he thinks, out of his room, then down the hotel hallway, and then he’s staring at the door. It’s propped open on the deadbolt, but he knocks anyway.

“Who’s it?” comes from inside.

“Harry. Can I come in?”

There’s a pause—fucking hell, that pause that shouldn’t be there—then, “Yeah, ‘course. It’s open.”

Harry pushes the door open. Zayn is lying on the bed, his computer open on his lap, and he looks warm and comfortable in his sweats and t-shirt, even if he isn’t looking at Harry, still.

Harry lets the door fall closed behind him, then he crosses the room and throws himself onto the bed next to Zayn, curling in close. This is what he needs. Niall is for uncomplicated laughter, Liam is for advice, Louis is for distraction, but Zayn’s always been for comfort, to him.

Zayn’s arm twitches, like he wants to wrap it around Harry, like he should be doing, but he doesn’t. But he still looks at Harry, concern in his eyes, and it feels like breathing again. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing. Stupid stuff. Facebook friend had a baby.” Harry explains. “I don’t know. Her husband was smiling at her.”

He can hear the laugh in Zayn’s voice when he speaks, but he knows Zayn isn’t laughing at him. He never does, when it’s important. “Pretty sure your spouse will smile at you, too.”

“Yeah, I know. They better. But it’s just…our lives, you know?”

“Yeah.” Zayn doesn’t move when Harry burrows closer, tries to absorb the warmth of Zayn’s skin into him. This is the home he doesn’t have in a place, the home he always comes back to, he thinks as he inhales, breathes in the scent of him. He wants Zayn to smile at him.

They sit there in silence for a moment. It’s good, it’s almost familiar, but it’s not how it should be. Zayn’s not petting him, isn’t really hugging him, is stiff and angular under him. But it’s still comfort. Harry’s not even thinking about how these sheets are almost the same green as in the film, about how he can feel Zayn’s chest rising and falling slowly, and how it sped up when he was close. He’s thinking about that picture, about the family. About how good he and Zayn would look in that sort of picture, with a baby with black hair and hazel eyes and dimples.

“What can I do to fix us?” Harry asks, at last. It’s probably not clear why that was a jump, but Zayn’s never questioned that sort of thing, and he doesn’t now.

“What do you mean?”

“I want us to be us again.” Harry rubs his nose over Zayn’s shoulder, and feels the line of muscle tensed there. “I just want you not to be weird.”

Zayn sighs, and his head tips back so he’s looking at the ceiling. His neck is arched, right there in front of Harry, perfect to bite. “It’s not you, Haz. I’m trying. I’ll figure it out.”

Harry shakes his head. “But you haven’t. I miss you. I want my Zayn back again.” He wants a lot more than that, he’s starting to think, but it’ll be a start.

“I know.” Very slowly, almost hesitantly, Zayn reaches out a hand and runs it through Harry’s hair. Harry very consciously holds back on the urge to purr. “I’m trying, yeah? I’ll get there.”

“What is it, though?” When Zayn’s hand stills again, Harry pushes into it. Not just because he loves the feel of Zayn’s hands running through his hair, but because it’s one of their things, one of their little rituals that communicate more through touch than words, and Harry needs that. Needs that even as a tiny part of him is wondering if Zayn would pull his hair—the guy’s hair had been too short to get a grip in, but Harry’s hair is long and pullable, and maybe Zayn would tug on it in his desperation.

“It’s nothing.”

Harry groans, and does what he least wants to do and pulls away from Zayn’s hand, but only so he can sit up and straddle Zayn’s waist, pushing the computer carefully aside. This way he can look at Zayn, all golden against the duvet. Then he focuses and really looks at Zayn, at the wrinkle in between his eyebrows and the way he’s looking above Harry’s head and biting at his lip.

“Zayn,” Harry says, very seriously. “Come on, Zayn, we can work this out if you just tell me what’s wrong. Is it the bi thing? Because you know, out of everyone, I’m the one you can talk to about that. Or, like, I can ask Grimmy to talk to you, he’s great about it.”

“Don’t—don’t fucking ask Grimmy, Harry. I don’t need to talk to anyone.”

Of course he thinks he doesn’t. “You need to talk to me,” Harry argues, and stabs at Zayn’s chest. Then, for good measure, at his forehead, where the wrinkles are. “I can help with this. I did it.”

“I’m really fine.”

“No, you’re keeping secrets. You’ve been keeping secrets. You didn’t even tell me you were bi when I was coming out!”

Zayn has the grace to look ashamed at that. “Yeah, well. I didn’t tell anyone. And you were fine.”

“Would have been better if you had helped,” Harry mutters. It’s true, he thinks. Probably. Though if he had known—would he have had this realization sooner, that he wanted Zayn? He doesn’t know. He’s not sure if it would have been good, if he had. Though then he could have gone about this properly, romantically, not just trying to get them back on even footing. Then he would have eased into it, not been hit by the want all at once.

Zayn bites at his lip again. It’s really not helping anything. “I am sorry, about that. If I could have helped. But it was easier, you know? There was Pezza, and I...” He shrugs.

“So you don’t go out and pick up boys in clubs and get sex tapes made often?” Harry asks, teasing. Maybe that will make Zayn relax.

Zayn does snort out a laugh, so that’s good. “Not since X Factor. It’s too complicated.”

“Doesn’t have to be.” Harry waggles his eyebrows, then curses himself because Zayn’s smile dies and he’s back to looking uncomfortable. But he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, if he’s not allowed to flirt! He likes flirting with Zayn. He likes how it gets him Zayn’s Harry-look, and he likes how Zayn _usually_ flirts back.

“Yeah.” Zayn swallows again. “I’m sorry I’m being weird, yeah? I’ll try to be better, promise.” He gives Harry a smile that isn’t any of the smiles Harry loves on him. It just makes him look sad, and Harry hates it when Zayn looks sad. “We’ll be us again. Just give me a little longer to, like, acclimate, okay?”

“Acclimate to what?” When Zayn doesn’t answer, just bites his lip and looks out over Harry’s shoulder, Harry bounces to get his attention. It certainly works—Zayn’s eyes flick to his, and they’re wide and almost panicked. “Acclimate to what, Zayn?”

“To n—”

“If you say nothing I’m staying here all night,” Harry warns, “Won’t let you get up or anything.” It’s a pretty good threat, if he says so himself. Not exactly a hardship for him. He wants to keep Zayn in bed all night.

It certainly looks like it works, because Zayn gives a wry smile that Harry can’t quite interpret and shakes his head. “Brat,” he says, fondly. Harry sticks his tongue out. “Fine. To, just, wrap my head around everything. That better?”

“No,” Harry tells him, but he rolls reluctantly off him anyway. It’s not nothing. And Harry guesses it is a weird way for your friends to find out you’re bi, and this is Zayn, who broods over everything, overthinks it. It makes sense. Even if Harry wants to demand they go back to normal right now, so Harry can cuddle back into Zayn without feeling weird. “But it’s good enough.”

“Glad to know,” Zayn drawls, and picks his computer back up. Harry wouldn’t normally leave when that happens; he’s spent plenty of quiet afternoons recharging his energy with Zayn fiddling on his computer next to him. But he can give Zayn space, if space is what he needs. Positive reinforcement for asking for it. For talking with Harry, at least a bit.

So Harry gets up, with a final poke to Zayn’s side that has him flinching away with a giggle, because he’s surprisingly ticklish. He’s at the door when Zayn speaks again. “Haz. You really didn’t watch it, right?”

Harry hates lying, he does. But he knows they’ll never get back to normal if Zayn knows even now he can’t help seeing Zayn spread out naked on the mattress. There will be time for that later. “No. ‘Course not. I wouldn’t.”

He leaves before his face can give him away.

\---

It gets better, after that. Sort of. Zayn stops acting so weird, starts looking at Harry again and doesn’t ignore him. He doesn’t hug him, or lean on him, or pretend to order Harry to suck his dick on stage, but he starts petting Harry again and teases him and once even flirted back. So that’s good. But he also keeps on going out, keeps on coming back late at night or even late in the morning in last night’s clothes.

It’s not like Zayn’s never pulled before, because he has, and Harry’s even wingmanned him more than once, but now—now Harry’s stuck in a painful sort of limbo between being wildly, painfully jealous of all the people Zayn’s been having sex with, and wildly, painfully turned on by thinking about Zayn having sex. It’s painful and confusing and normally Harry would go to Zayn to talk it out, but he can’t.

The jealous he can’t do anything about, because it’s not like he can just tell Zayn he shouldn’t be having sex with other people he should be having sex with Harry and possibly start a family with him too eventually, but the turned on he can. In respect for Zayn, he holds off watching the video for a whole week, goes back to his old favorites, scans for new ones. He figures he shouldn’t go out of his way to break his promise to Zayn, if he can help it.

But he’s only human. And so when Louis and Zayn stop into his room to convince him to join them and Liam on their night out, he refuses. He can’t go out and see Zayn pull someone, because he’s not convinced he won’t grab Zayn then and there, pull him away from whomever he’s picking up and into Harry, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone. He really couldn’t be blamed for it, with Zayn all hot and sharp-edged in his tight jeans and a black shirt under a leather jacket.

“You sure?” Louis asks. “You can watch Zayn in action, it’s been really impressive lately.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “I’m always impressive, bro.”

“You wish.”

“I know.” Zayn grins at Louis, loose and easy and teasing, like he hasn’t been with Harry for weeks. Not really, not even now he’s trying. “You wish you could be as good as me.”

“Nah, that’s what I’ve got El for,” Louis retorts. “I don’t need to go pick up blokes in bars to make porn.”

“Like El would ever agree to that,” Zayn shoots back, and Louis laughs.

“Anyway, Haz. You should come.”

“Yeah, Haz,” Zayn agrees. But Harry knows his sincere voice, and this isn’t it. This isn’t the voice he uses when he’s pulling Harry close to show him a new song he found, not the voice he uses when he’s trying to get Harry to come with him to a tattoo parlor. Zayn’s always been a crap liar, when he actually speaks his lies. “Come.”

Harry grins back, like he hadn’t caught the lie. “No thanks, gonna have a lie in.”

“Boring,” Louis retorts, which is all sorts of unfair. Harry opens his mouth to point it out, but Zayn elbows Louis in the side before he can.

“Like this isn’t the first time you’ve been out in months,” Zayn says. It’s probably just that he doesn’t want Harry to come, Harry knows, but it feels like it’s Zayn standing up for him even when he doesn’t need it, and that feels lovely.

“Shut up,” Louis snaps back, then turns to Harry. “Last call?”

Zayn’s not looking at him, which means Harry can look at him, can take in the carefully styled hair, the tight jeans, all the things he puts on when he wants to pull. All the things Harry can imagine peeling off, until he’s bare against the hotel blankets. Or someone else’s blankets, more likely, but Harry can imagine.

“No,” he says. “’s all right, I need some quiet.”

“Still lame,” Louis informs him, and turns to go, Zayn on his heels. Harry doesn’t bother not watching Zayn leave, how the dark denim stretches over his narrow hips, how the jacket spreads wide over a back Harry knows would roll and curve if Harry kissed it right.

Just like he doesn’t bother not pulling out his computer, as soon as he thinks Zayn and Louis are far enough away. Last time, he promises himself. One last time, then he did promise Zayn and he’ll be done.

He always thinks he has it memorized, but every time he watches it he catches something new. A new way the light hits Zayn’s bare back, all young flushed skin without the ink that spreads over it now, that would make it even more obvious how his muscles moved beneath it; a new sound Zayn made, when he was thrust into at a certain angle Harry studies carefully, just in case. It means it’s always better, really, always better than the last, and Harry’s still enthralled even as it starts, his hand moving slowly over his cock through his boxers in a tease, because he wants to last.

“Harry—” For a second, Harry doesn’t even register the voice, because it fits so far into the fantasies he’s building.

Then it hits, all at once, and Harry looks up from his computer to see Zayn in the doorway, his eyes wide, his hand still on the door.

“Zayn?” He’s still not sure he’s not imagining, because this would be perfect if he was—Zayn seeing, him giving a come hither smile and Zayn actually coming, pushing aside the computer for the real thing…

Then Zayn’s face twists like Harry knows he’d never imagine because he’d never imagine Zayn in pain, and he stutters out, “Oh, sorry. I’ll…”

It takes Harry another second to put everything together, but this is Zayn, approaching him. Zayn wanting to talk to him, or something, at least acknowledging him. “Wait!” he pushes the computer aside, moves his hand. “Not busy. What do you want?”

Zayn leans back against the door, but he’s tense, and he never crosses his arms across his chest when he’s actually casual. “If you’ve got things you’d rather do…”

“Never.” Harry offers him a dirty grin, which he knows Zayn gets because he sort of rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t reply. “I mean, no. Why aren’t you out?”

“I wanted…” Zayn trails off, then shakes his head. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t, like, not coming out because I’ve been weird. Like, I wasn’t scaring you away or anything. If it’s too weird I’ll stay here, yeah? It’s fine.”

“Nah.” Harry pushes his hair back, out of his face. “I’m fine here. Promise. It’s not you.”

“I can see that,” Zayn drawls, and Harry could almost laugh at the irony of it if he wasn’t busy grinning because Zayn is teasing.

“Hey,” he whines, smirking a little, “You’re the one who just came in.”

Zayn raises his hands, palm out. “What a bloke does in the privacy of his own room is none of my concern. Just wanted to check.”

“Well, I’m fine.” Harry gestures expansively to the room, somehow manages to overbalance, and catches himself half on the keyboard. Because this is his life, and Harry’s long since learned he’s a one-man slapstick routine sometimes, his thumb lands on the mousepad, and somehow it hits play.

“Fuck,” Zayn’s voice comes from the computer, “Fuck, come on—” Harry frantically hits pause again before any more can come out, and slams the computer shut. Maybe Zayn didn’t hear it. Maybe he didn’t recognize his own voice. Maybe he got temporary amnesia for the last twenty seconds.

When there’s no yelling, Harry reconsiders the absurdity of the amnesia theory, and chances a look at Zayn.

He’s not yelling. He doesn’t even look mad, really. He’s just rubbing at his temples, tired-looking again.

“Zayn?” he tries, tentatively. “I—”

Zayn raises a hand to cut him off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll head out now.”

It’ll be easier, definitely. But that’s what they’ve been doing and it’s not what Harry wants, because it’s driving Zayn away, knotting in his muscles and forming, like, a force field around Harry so Zayn can’t look at him, and Harry’s been adrift for the past weeks without him.

“No,” Harry says, firmly, and rolls off the bed to stand up as Zayn turns to grab at the doorknob. “I’m sorry I watched the video. I know I promised I wouldn’t.”

Zayn pauses with his hand on the door. His head is bowed, a little, so the fern peaks out over the top of his jacket. “I said, it’s fine, Harry.”

“It’s not!” Harry wants to stomp his feet, wants to grab Zayn and drag him away from the door, but he settles for raising his voice. Anything to get some sort of reaction out of Zayn. To get him to actually talk to Harry. “I told you I wouldn’t watch it, and I did. I’m watching you having sex. I’m watching you get fucked. Aren’t you something? Mad? Annoyed? Hurt?”

“I told you, Harry, it’s weird, that’s all—”

“Stop it! Stop acting like that’s all!” Harry doesn’t get mad often, but he can feel it building in him, almost like that feeling when he looked at the Facebook photo, like he’s missing something he could have, if Zayn would only just talk to him. “It’s not all, and you won’t tell me how I can make it better!”

“You can’t!” Zayn snaps, and it’s the best thing Harry’s ever heard. The best thing Harry’s ever seen, because he spins around and he’s actually looking at Harry, at last. They know how to fight. This is something Harry can do, and then it’ll settle and they can be normal again. “This isn’t something you can fix, this is something I have to work through.”

“What is?” Harry demands. “That there was porn of you? That you like guys? That we know? Do you not trust us enough not to be weirded out by it?”

“No, it’s not—” Zayn huffs out a breath, and runs his hand through his hair, which he only does when he’s really emotional. Harry’d known the guilt trip would work. “I trust you. It’s just, like, it’s weird, is all.”

“What is?” Harry asks, gentler now.

Zayn shakes his head again, and Harry takes a step forward so he can rest a hand on Zayn’s hip, because they’ve always been better at communicating through touch. “C’mon, Zayn. Please?”

It works. It always works. Zayn’s shoulders sag, and he lets out a long, slow breath. “It’s weird, is all,” he repeats. Then he steps away a little, so Harry’s hand falls off of him. That stings. “I’m, like, trying to normalize. And I will.”

“So you’re being weird and pushing me away to normalize?” Harry asks.

Zayn snorts. “Yeah, basically.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.” Zayn sighs again, resigned. Harry resists the urge to do some sort of silly dance to make him smile again. “But it’s—you watched the tape.”

“You didn’t know that!”

“But you might have. I know you, Harry. Know you’d have lied.” Harry can’t exactly argue with that. Zayn looks past him, then pushes past him, crosses the room to the window so he can talk to it. It’s how Zayn deals with subjects he doesn’t want to talk about, talking to something safe—he does it in interviews all the time, talks to Harry or one of the boys instead of the interviewer. But Harry should be Zayn’s something safe, not some inanimate pane of glass looking out on a back lot of a city he doesn’t know. But Zayn’s also finally talking, so Harry doesn’t want to push again, to break something worse.

“Fuck, it didn’t matter, anyway. The point was, you might have. Might have seen it. Might have liked it. Might have liked me in it.”

Oh. Harry gulps. “Zayn, if I’m making you uncomfortable—”

“Not the point, Harry.” Zayn spins, suddenly, and he’s silhouetted against the window, dark and dangerous as Harry knows perfectly well he isn’t. It still makes his breath catch in his throat. “Look, it’s just—that’s not actually a great memory for me, yeah? It’s, like, I don’t know what it looks like, but he wasn’t exactly—I was seventeen, you know? I didn’t know what I wanted, and he didn’t ask. And you were—might have been—getting off to that.”

It makes Harry ache, a bit, for the boy in the video. For the man in front of him now. “I didn’t—that wasn’t the point—”

“I know. That was worse.” Zayn shakes his head. “Like, I could do our normal. I can. I will. I just need to, like, forget.”

“Forget what?” Harry can’t help taking the step towards Zayn.

Zayn blinks, his eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks. “That you might have been getting off to me.”

“I—” Is he supposed to apologize? It’s the truth, it’s been the truth since he saw the video, since he started seeing not the just the parts of Zayn that are beautiful but the whole breathtaking body of him. “I mean—”

“It’s okay,” Zayn says, quickly. Harry can’t quite tell, but he thinks he’s blushing. “Like, I’ve been reminding myself, I’m not obsessing, or, like, I’m trying, but it’s hard ‘cause you’re there, so that’s why—so I’ve been—” He cuts himself off. Harry can see him pull himself together, put his control back on in the way he has, of pushing everything underneath. It’s the worst. Harry hates it. Or, know, he’s glad Zayn has that self-defense, but he hates that Zayn is using it with him. “It’s fine. It’s porn, it’s hot, I get it. I know that’s all.”

“It’s not!” Harry bursts out, before he can stop himself. Then he decides he doesn’t care, and keeps going. He wants his Zayn back, and nothing is working, so Harry will throw himself off the edge if he has to. “It is hot. But that’s mainly because it’s you.”

“I was a cute teenager, I know.”

Harry shakes his head. “No. Well, yeah, you were. God. That was problematic, let me tell you, when we were, like, doing the shows and you were all you and pretty and really aggravating, but—” he stops himself before he gets too far off topic. “But it’s that it’s you. Not a cute teenager.”

Zayn’s eyes are getting even wider. “Fuck, Harry.” It doesn’t help, that Harry’s been imagining him saying just that as they fuck for weeks. That somehow, Harry’s been getting closer to Zayn as they talk, so they can almost touch.

“That a order?” Harry asks, and tries for a cheeky grin.

It must fall flat, because Zayn’s gaze is very, very serious. “I’m not him. I’m not the boy in that video, and if you want that, don’t—”

“I want you,” Harry says, simply. “Is that okay?”

Zayn smiles, at that, like he hasn’t at Harry for weeks. Not his beaming grin, but the softer one, that grows at the edges of his lips and blooms in his eyes and looks like it tastes so, so sweet. “Fuck, Haz,” he says again, and really Harry only has so much willpower.

Harry kisses him gently, sweetly, like he wishes the guy in the video had kissed him. He wants, needs, to feel Zayn underneath his hands, to savor the taste of smoke and whiskey between them, to revel in the lips he’s been imagining for weeks against his.

Zayn exhales softly into the kiss. When Harry pulls away, Zayn’s eyes are closed,

“You said you didn’t know what you wanted, then,” Harry whispers it, into the sudden quiet that’s come over them. He likes that it’s quiet. “Do you now?”

When Zayn opens his eyes, there’s laughter in them, a hint of teasing mischief Harry hasn’t gotten in so long that it feels like a shot of good, strong vodka. “Yeah, I do,” he says, and then suddenly they’re turned, and Harry’s the one being kissed.

It’s not sweet, or soft. It’s slow, still, but wonderfully, horribly thorough, Zayn’s hand on his neck, tilting his head down just a bit, his lips firm against Harry’s like he wants to explore all of him, wants all of him. It’s nothing Harry doesn’t want to give, or to take, and he pushes back, grabs onto Zayn’s waist and tugs him closer so they can be pressed together, because he always wants to be closer to Zayn.

Zayn lets him pull him in, then without breaking the kiss starts walking backwards, one hand still on Harry’s neck, the other fisted in his shirt. Harry can’t help but follow, stumbling forward so he can keep on touching Zayn, breaking away from his lips to kiss at his jaw, his neck, all the sharp lines of him that he’s tasted before but never like this. They tumble onto the bed together, Zayn falling backwards and pulling Harry down with him.

It’s a sexy move, but it’s also Harry, and he only barely catches himself from just smacking into Zayn’s face and does manage to knee him in the thigh.

“Shit!” Zayn mutters, not in the sexy way.

“Sorry!” But this is Zayn, and Harry’s never had to apologize with Zayn, never had to pretend to be something he’s not, whether it’s the perfect pop star or a clumsy boy, so he grins. “Want me to kiss it better?”

It almost feels better than the kiss, getting Zayn’s smirky smile in response to that. “Only fair, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry replies, and tugs Zayn back up so he’s straddling his lap and can wrestle his jacket off, because Zayn is wearing far too many clothes. Zayn lets him slide the jacket off, then his shirt, because Harry’s been trying not to look for a long time and now he wants to, wants to be able to run his hand over the smooth skin, all muscle and bone and barely a hint of fat, to trace over his chest and see Zayn shiver.

When he looks up from his inspection, Zayn’s watching him with that knowing, intense gaze that sets Harry on fire. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” It’s all Harry needs to say, because then he’s kissing Zayn again, and there’s no pretense of slow anymore, all lips and tongue and Zayn’s hands grabbing at his ass so Harry moans into the kiss and pushes in more. Then Zayn’s hands are gone and Harry spares a second to pull away and pout. Zayn just grins.

“Never thought I’d have to tell you you’re too dressed,” he drawls, as his fingers make short work of the buttons on Harry’s shirt and toss it away.

“Hey, watch it, that’s—” Harry forgets what he’s going to say when Zayn scrapes a finger over his nipple.

“Course you’d like that.” Zayn grins again, and pinches lightly, so Harry breathes out a harsh breath. “C’mon, babe. Heard something about kissing it better.”

“You’re bossy, aren’t you?” Harry asks, and slides off Zayn’s lap onto the floor between his thighs. Zayn props himself up with his hands behind him, but Harry’s busy licking at the words on his hip as he scrambles to undo Zayn’s belt and jeans. Zayn lifts his hips so Harry can pull them down, and he thinks he might actually see stars when he realizes Zayn wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“Told you, I know what I want.” Zayn’s already mostly hard, and it’s not like Harry hasn’t seen his cock before but it’s different not on the screen, different when it’s right there in front of him, when Harry can reach out and stroke it once, lightly, just to see Zayn shudder. “Fuck, Haz, get on with it.”

“Say please.” Harry settles back to press a kiss to Zayn’s knee, then up the inside of his thighs.

“Make me.” Zayn’s voice is rough and there’s never been a dare Harry won’t take, and there is nothing he wants more in that moment than to have made Zayn beg, to see if he can do what the guy in the video did and have Zayn so lost he can’t do anything but beg, so he presses another kiss to the top of Zayn’s thigh, then to the tip of Zayn’s cock, before he wraps his mouth around it.

Zayn moans, and his hips jerk before Harry gets a hand on his hips to hold him down, as his other hand teases at Zayn’s balls before he circles the base of his cock, as he sucks and licks until Zayn’s swearing at a constant stream and Harry can feel his muscles convulsing.

There’s a hand in his hair, and a tug, and Harry pulls off with a confused murmur and a pop when Zayn drags him back up to kiss him sloppily, the taste of Zayn’s precum salty between them.

“Want you to fuck me,” Zayn says into Harry’s mouth, as Harry grinds his hips against Zayn’s. Harry’s hips stutter out of sheer overwhelming want. “C’mon, babe, want you inside me, want—”

“Yeah.” Harry breaks the kiss to yank off his own jeans, as Zayn scoots backwards on the bed so he’s actually properly on it.

Harry turns around the rummage in his bag for a condom—and a few deep breaths so he’ll last, because this is almost too much, everything he’s been wanting for weeks-months-years—that all come to naught because when he turns around Zayn’s got his legs spread and his fingers in him, obviously having found the lube Harry’d left on the bedside table. His face is intent, slack-jawed, his eyes almost slits, and Harry can’t look away, can’t see anything but Zayn’s finger—fingers, as he adds another as Harry watches, sliding in and out of him.

He nearly trips getting back on the bed, and Zayn laughs breathlessly, then reaches out the hand not working its way in him to tug him in, kissing him sloppily with the laughter still on his breath. No one had laughed, in that film, Harry thinks a propos of nothing and everything, and kisses Zayn again, because he can. Because he wants to. Because he can trail his lips down Zayn’s neck and bite at the place that had turned him to jelly on the tape.

It gets a moan out of Zayn. He tilts his head to give Harry better access, and Harry takes that cue, sucking at where he’d just bitten. It’ll leave a mark, Harry thinks, hopes. He’ll get yelled at but it’ll leave a mark like all the others Zayn’s been getting recently, except better because it’s his.

“Okay, fuck, fuck me, come on.” Harry doesn’t exactly need telling twice, but he hesitates slightly, as Zayn spreads his legs.

“Do you—like, in the video, he slapped—”

“No.” Zayn flicks at Harry’s nipple, which makes him shudder. “No, not—like, that was—no.”

“So, how…”

“Like this.” Zayn rolls his eyes, and it’s so familiar an expression Harry has to kiss him again. “Come on, Styles. Didn’t think this was what I would have to beg for.”

“I’ll have you begging,” Harry promises, and kisses down Zayn’s chest until he can bite lightly on one nipple. Zayn swears and his hips buck and Harry doesn’t know why he was stalling, so he eases his way into Zayn, slowly as he can, because he remembers that video and he doesn’t—he won’t—

Zayn doesn’t make a sound as Harry pushes in. But Harry shuts his eyes tight, fists his hands in the sheets. It feels so fucking good, better than he’d imagined watching the video, Zayn all around him, under him.

He opens his eyes when Zayn’s hips rock, and that’s even better too, Zayn lying on the bed beneath him, golden against the sheets, his hair disheveled from Harry’s hands and his pupils blown black. “You good?” he asks.

“One sec.” Zayn shifts his hips again, lifts his legs higher, and takes a deep breath. Then he smiles at Harry again, and rolls his hips a third time so Harry stutters out a breath. “Okay, yeah.”

Harry pulls out a bit then, thrusts back in, and Zayn moans again and meets his thrust. He looks better than he did in the video, better than he has anywhere else, because he’s here and he’s spread out on Harry’s sheets and Harry’s the one making him swear and moan and mutter things like “faster—fuck it—no, higher—” And now Harry can see Zayn’s face, can see how his eyelashes flutter and his mouth moves constantly, until Harry has to catch the words with a kiss.

“Fuck, Harry, fucking touch me,” Zayn pulls away from the kiss to demand. His voice is rough and low and it goes straight to Harry’s cock, so he gives one more hard thrust before he does as Zayn says, wrapping his hand around Zayn’s hard cock to jerk him off. Zayn grabs his other hand, and Harry’s about to point out he will fall over if it’s not holding himself up somehow, but Zayn just interlaces their fingers and brings it down beside his head.

“Come on, babe, want you to come, want to feel you come in me, come on,” Zayn is muttering, and Harry looks at their interlaced fingers and Zayn pulls him closer with his heels and keens when his prostate is hit, and Harry can’t hold on any longer. He comes, burying his face in Zayn’s shoulder and watching his hand clench around Zayn’s.

Zayn’s hand runs down his back, like he does when he’s comforting Harry. “God, Haz, you’re so—fucking—” He moves his hand, so now it’s wrapped over Harry’s around him, and he’s pumping them together. “Just, your face, Harry, fuck _Harry_ —” he comes on Harry’s name, and the video is nothing to Zayn’s face when he comes, the way it screws up and his eyes close and his cum is sticky on Harry’s palm.

“Fuck,” Zayn breathes, when Harry looks up to see his eyes opening again. His cheeks are still flushed, and there’s sweat on his forehead, and he’s beautiful. He smiles when he sees Harry looking at him. “Better than the film?”

“Better than anything,” Harry swears. He pulls out slowly, as gently as he can, then flails around until he finds a rag that he thinks might be Zayn’s shirt to clean them off. That done, he curls up next to Zayn like he always does, and Zayn throws an arm around his shoulders, and it’s like normal but better.

Zayn’s fingers are making circles on his shoulder, and Harry can feel him breathing from where his cheek rests on Zayn’s shoulder. “You’ve been driving me mad, you know,” he murmurs, into the quiet.

“Yeah?”

Zayn does not sound sufficiently repentant, so Harry bites at his shoulder. “Yeah. I couldn’t look at you without thinking about that film. Not for weeks.”

“Well, you’ve been driving me mad for years, so it’s fair, yeah?”

“Years?” Harry looks up at Zayn at that. Zayn’s biting at his lip, and he’s glancing down at his hands, but he’s not tense, not like he has been.

“More or less. Don’t know exactly when, but…”

“Good.” Harry kisses the place he had just bitten. Zayn tastes of sweat and him and it’s lovely. “Well, not good, because we could have been doing this ages ago if I would have noticed, not that I could have because you’re so secretive. We’ll have to work on that—we can’t keep secrets, it’s not healthy for a relationship. I won’t lie about watching you have sex, you can’t lie about wanting to have sex. I think it’ll work.” Harry presses his lips together, thinking. They need to lay this out, he thinks. Good communication. “Also, if you’re having any more threesomes, I have to be involved,” he decides as the final rule.

“Sounds fair,” Zayn agrees. There’s something in his tone that makes Harry look at him. He’s smiling at Harry, his soft Harry-smile that sparkles in his eyes. Harry wants a picture of right now. Wants it on Facebook, wants it everywhere. Wants to be able to look at Zayn smiling at him like that all the time.

It’s quiet again, as Harry listens to Zayn breathe and cuddles close. He needs to delete the film, he thinks, idly. It’s probably only fair, now that he has Zayn. And also knows it’s sketchy.

“Hey, Zayn,” he says, and grins cheekily when Zayn glances at him again. “We should make a sex tape.”

“Haz.”

“What? We know it’d be hot, and it’s not like you don’t like being filmed, and—hey!” he cuts off, laughing, when Zayn rolls on top of him, pinning him down with his hands on either side of Harry’s head and his knees around his waist. “I just think it’d be a good idea, is all, we could—”

“Harry.” Maybe just a sex recording, actually, because Harry could probably get off to just Zayn saying his name. “Shut up.”

“But you’re so hot when—”

Zayn cuts him off with a kiss, and Harry’s laughing into it as he grabs Zayn and holds him close. Who needs a video anyway?

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it/anything at all? Come say hi on [ tumblr!](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
